TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — After Saturday's scrimmage, Nick Saban's first point of criticism was directed at the Alabama offensive line.

He said they weren't "physical enough" on the line of scrimmage. Granted, they were playing without a few key parts like Leon Brown and Dominick Jackson, but there were higher expectations.

Center Ryan Kelly is a leader of that group and he wasn't about to argue with that assessment.

"It wasn't one of our best outings," he said. "We kind of let the offense down."

Going back to the film revealed some of the issues. Kelly saw they weren't knocking the defense off the line and the pocket wasn't quite as secure.

"As an offensive line, we pride ourselves on moving the line of scrimmage back," Kelly said. "That's something we got away from. It's kind of hard to watch that kind of stuff on film. But that's something that drives us this week. We have to get better and get back to what we've been doing."

The return of A-Day starters Jarran Reed and Brandon Ivory on the defensive line played a factor too. The first scrimmage featured all previous backups in the first group, so getting two first-teamers on the field helped level things a bit.

"No matter how big they are. If they're fast or if they're big, two-gapping guys, we should be able to move them off the ball," Kelly said. "That doesn't take anything away from Brandon Ivory or Reed. Those guys are really good players and they're big guys. We just have to get after it this week."

Brown is settling back in to the rotation at right guard after missing more than a week with an offseason foot injury. He was back to full speed late last week but didn't scrimmage.

"He kind of had that unfortunate injury," Kelly said. "He was always competing and he still is right now. It's good to have another guy out there who's got some experience and who's an older guy. Obviously he hasn't been in the system that long, but he's a big part of what we do as an offense and I think he can really help us."